


The Scent of Herbs and Spice

by Stormvoël (BushRat8)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Blow Job, Cloves, F/M, Red-Light District
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-09 07:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12271521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BushRat8/pseuds/Stormvo%C3%ABl
Summary: Away from home for months and at anchor in Cádiz, Spain, Barbossa tries to quell his loneliness with a visit to the pleasure district, and ends up having a conversation about the innkeeper with the last person he'd ever expect.





	The Scent of Herbs and Spice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [walkwithursus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/gifts).



> _Querido_ is the Castilian/Spanish for sweetheart or darling. The lady in question calls all her customers that.

 

 

-oOo-

 

 

 

He's been to Cádiz many times before and knows the streets of the pleasure district so well, he could walk them in his sleep.  He knows where the cheap girls are, to whom he can flip the smallest silver coin and get a pull of their hands in return.  Two coins will buy him a very satisfactory suck;  three, and they'll open their legs for a quickie;  if he's willing to part with four, they'll fuck him to within an inch of his life.  Cheap or not, the girls pride themselves on how good they are at that.  
  
But Barbossa's not after cheap tonight;  not when what he wants most is a soft bed to lie in, warm arms around his neck, and seductive whispers in the dark.  If he pays enough, he can have all of them.  
  
The higher-priced women lounge in their doorways, flaunting at passing sailors by extending shapely legs from beneath scandalously short skirts or casually pulling the tops of their bodices down to expose ripe breasts with rouged nipples.  _Me, hombre, choose me,_ their actions say.  _I'll give you a luscious body and the sweetest dreams you can imagine, all for just a piece or two of your gold.  What's gold compared to me?_  
  
In the old days, Barbossa would grow instantly hard and his mouth would water at this display of feminine pulchritude, but now, all it does it set him to longing for a woman who isn't here and so he cannot have her:  a lovely, sweet-natured woman with dark hair, black eyes, and soft, fair skin that's touched with the scent of herbs and spices.  She wears no pink on her cheeks like these made-up women, but then, she doesn't have to;  not when the very sight of him makes her blush.  
  
It's not excitement Barbossa feels as he looks the girls over, but the pain of separation from the woman he really wants.  Well, if he can't have her, then perhaps he can find one like her.  "You,"  he says, beckoning to a poor imitation.  "Turn around."  The woman flutters her eyelashes and twirls before him, but even with all her gyrations, she makes him feel nothing.  "No."  
  
She goes back to her doorway, muttering imprecations, but Barbossa neither hears nor cares.  
  
The same examination of the wares is repeated up one street and down another, until Barbossa's about to give up and go find himself a tavern where he can hole up in a corner and get comfortably drunk, when he spots another woman.  She's not nearly as young as the others, but unlike them, she looks kind, and something tells him that, as long as he pays for it, she won't laugh should he want to be held as he is at home.  
  
She's a little puzzled that Barbossa doesn't want to put an arm about her waist as they go up to her room, until she gets a good look in his tired blue eyes.  _This one's got a woman at home_ ,  she thinks,  _and his heart is aching_.  "Don't worry, _querido_ ,"  she says gently.  "I don't want to make you forget her.  I just want to make you feel good… for now.  So, what would you like?"  
  
All at once, Barbossa can't bear the idea of entering another woman;  not so intimately, not like that.  He can't stand the thought of holding or kissing a woman who doesn't smell of the innkeeper's green herbs and spice, and doesn't taste the way she does.  There's only one familiar bed he wants to lie in, one pair of arms he wants holding him close, one voice murmuring in his ear.  "Just…"  He hooks a fingertip in the whore's mouth;  enough to tell her that a wet, warm sucking as he relaxes in the room's chair is plenty.  
  
And it does feel good, he can't deny that.  If Barbossa squints a bit, he can see the harlot's mop of dark hair bobbing up and down in his lap, and it's easy to think of the innkeeper on her knees or lying beside him on the bed, pleasuring him in exactly the same way.  She loves it, he knows;  loves the taste of his sensitive flesh and the way he whimpers and cries to let her know how exquisitely wonderful the slip of her tongue feels against it.  
  
It's the wrong place and time and perhaps he shouldn't, but he begins to moan the innkeeper's name.  
  
The whore briefly glances up to find Barbossa's eyes are tightly shut, and it doesn't take hearing the unfamiliar name on his lips for her to know that everything in him is running toward home, to the wife or lover who sits waiting for him, watching the sea, hoping it will bring him back to her.  She isn't really the sentimental sort — she can't afford to be, not in her profession — but sometimes, she can feel for the loneliness of a man she services, and she's not felt it as strongly as this in a long time.    
  
She holds one of Barbossa's hands tightly as he climaxes, listening to his harsh panting and the way he keeps gasping out his lover's name, and trying to give him the kindness of being as unobtrusive as possible when she spits into the cloth in her pocket.  "She'd understand, _querido_ ,"  she tells him once he catches his breath.  
  
He sighs.  "Nay,"  he replies.  "She'd be sick jealous t' know ye touched me… but I know she'd try t' forgive me all th' same."  
  
"She sounds like a good woman.  She's good to you?"  
  
There's a soft mist in Barbossa's eyes as he nods.  "She be as fine an' good an' fair a woman as e'er walked this earth, is m' sweet Dove, an' why she should love a rotter like me be a mystery."  
  
Neither his expression nor the longing 'Dove' get past the harlot;  not for one moment.  "You love her."  It's not a question.  
  
Barbossa smiles faintly, but doesn't answer.  
  
_Tsk tsk_ ,  she thinks.  _One of those:  too tough to tell your woman how much you love and need her.  Or too frightened_.  She gets to her feet, then;  watches as he fastens his breeches and straightens his sash.  "Then you must go home to her.  I've known many sailors in my life, and I know this:  no matter how much you love the sea, it's best not to stay away from home for too long."  
  
"Aye,"  Barbossa replies thoughtfully, getting up.  "That be more true'n ye know.  But 'twill be some time yet afore I see her, for she be on t' other side of an ocean."  
  
"Then you'd best get started, hm?"  
  
In answer, Barbossa retrieves three more pieces of gold from his purse and adds them to the two he paid her for services rendered.  "That be for yer wise advice, missy,"  he says,  "an' now I'll be biddin' ye good night."  
  
The whore escorts him down to the street, and watches as he disappears into the fog;  taking, as she does so, a small box of cloves from her pocket, chewing on one of them to freshen her mouth for the next customer.  
  
While across the Atlantic, on a warm Caribbean island, a lonely innkeeper puts a clove in her mouth to keep it sweet for Hector Barbossa, watching out over the harbor and praying with all her might that he'll come home on the tide.

 

  
  
-oOo-  FIN  -oOo-


End file.
